“The entire legal profession…
has become so mesmerized with the stimulation of the courtroom contest,
that we tend to forget that we ought to be healers of conflict… Trial
by adversarial contest must in time go the way of the ancient trial by
battle and blood…Our system has become too costly, too painful, too
destructive, too inefficient for truly civilized people.”
–Chief Justice Warren Burger, 1984
Divorce is not an event. Divorce is a process. It is the process by which one makes the transition from being part of a couple to being single.
It is a journey during the course of which one unit of two divides into
two units of one. The goal of a healthy divorce should be to begin as
two, end as one, and still feel whole.
This journey will lead the parties through an often treacherous and painful maze of transitions: legal, physical, emotional, financial,
and spiritual. If this maze is to be successfully navigated, then in
addition to attorneys, parties should enlist the services of experts in
these other specific transition areas. This will more likely assure that
dissolution can become a key to wholeness, so that something new and
extraordinary occurs.
If
we are to successfully navigate this treacherous and painful path, we
must enlist the services of those who have expertise in specific areas
of the divorce process, to guide us along the way, so that at the end of
our journey, we remain whole. When we do this, we are doing something
new and extraordinary called Collaborative Divorce.
Collaborative
Divorce is a new paradigm for conflict resolution in the area of
dissolution of marriage. It is practiced by attorneys willing to take
steps to see that Justice Berger’s advice to “truly civilized people”
becomes reality. These lawyers support the belief that family is
forever, therefore family disputes are best resolved outside of a
courtroom, using collaborative strategies rather than adversarial
methods like litigation. Such attorneys believe in and have been trained
in non-adversarial dispute resolution. Through the dissolution process,
they model for their clients a commitment to honesty, dignified
behavior, and mutual respect. They use disagreement between the parties
to find creative solutions in order to reach collaborative settlement. Imagine a divorce in which collaboration replaces competition, where financial disclosure is mandatory, and mediation becomes the rule rather than the exception.
The
advantages of Collaborative Divorce are many. Sessions are held in
private, keeping many details out of the public record. The clients,
with their lawyers assisting, are in charge and make their own
agreements, rather than giving power and control to the court. Such
flexibility allows for more creativity with which to fashion settlement
terms. Without the need to wait on lengthy periods for hearing or trial
dates, the divorce can proceed in a timely fashion, saving huge amounts
on attorney fees.
Just
as with the death of one partner, as a result of divorce, the family
will naturally restructure itself. Yet for this restructuring process to
be optimally healthy, professional help is often needed. Lawyers too
often are called upon to attempt to solve the client’s emotional and
financial issues, yet we, however well intentioned, have not been
trained to do so. Such issues ought to be addressed by specialists in
each field — psychotherapists and CPAs. Imagine a divorce in which families employ therapists
and experts as part of a team to help them fix the problems rather than
fixing the blame. Collaborative Divorce is a movement among many of the
helping professions such as lawyers, psychologists, CPAs, and Financial
Planners, as well as real-estate brokers, loan brokers, and others who
share the belief that a family is forever.
As
a California Certified Family Law Specialist, I customarily recommend
that each divorcing party be supported by an individual therapist. I
have come to the conclusion that the couple greatly benefits by seeing a
Divorce Coach as well. The Divorce Coach, usually a psychotherapist,
teaches communication skills, educates and assists the couple with
consistent co-parenting,
and normalizes closure issues. Often great strides are made in these
areas, and the family unit, though changed, emerges strengthened as a
whole.
Through
good planning and collaborative allocation of resources, CPAs and
Financial Planners may successfully assist the family to conserve its
assets to the advantage of both parties and the children.
One
might question the expense of involving so many experts in an
individual case, yet we have seen in case after case that a
Collaborative Divorce saves not only money, it also saves each party the
great emotional cost of a litigated divorce — less time, less expense,
less trauma, less damage to children. Clearly a case where less is
more.
If a couple facing divorce values emotional health and relationships,
desires the best for their children, and wishes to conserve family
finances, the Collaborative Divorce process is the ideal choice.
In his autobiography, The Story of My Experiments With the Truth,
Mahatma Gandhi wrote, describing how he had helped parties during his
years as a practicing attorney: “My joy was boundless. I had learnt the
true practice of law. I had learnt to find out the better side of human
nature…I realized the true function of a lawyer was to unite parties
driven asunder. The lesson was so indelibly burnt into me that a large
part of my time during the 20 years of my practice as a lawyer was
occupied in bringing about private compromises of hundreds of cases. I
lost nothing thereby — not even money, certainly not my soul.”
Ronald
M. Supancic is a California Certified Family Law Specialist and
past-president and founding member of the Coalition for Collaborative
Divorce.
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